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Insights / Dutch startups off to a slow start in 2016 – raising €69 million in Q1

Dutch startups off to a slow start in 2016 – raising €69 million in Q1

2016-04-06 | Lorenz van Gool

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Dutch startups have raised 69 million euro in the first quarter of 2016. The funding activity is slightly higher compared to the previous quarter, when 59 million euro was raised in Q4 2015 – but is off to a slow start compared to the same period last year, when nearly 86 million euro was raised.

In total, we saw 36 deals in the first quarter of this year. The average deal size in Q1 2016 was €1.9M and the median deal size was €1.0M. Compared to Q4 2015, where we saw 34 deals, an average deal size of €1.7M and the same median deal size – these numbers show a small quarter-on-quarter improvement.

Dutch startups aren’t the only ones prone to this almost flat growth. Recent numbers from Tech.eu show nearly the same trend (Q4 2015 to Q1 2016) through all of Europe + Israël, when compared to statistics in the Netherlands.

Although both in Europe and The Netherlands the number of deals grew, the average Dutch startup deal size in Q1 didn’t go down. If we look at the deal size in absolutes, Dutch startups of course are behind.

Biggest deals are for medtech

We didn’t see a lot of big deals this quarter; just five deals of €5M or more. Two medtech companies took the lead at the start of 2016. DNA analytics startup BlueBee tops the list with a €10M series A investment and immunotherapy startup Gadeta received €7M and takes second place. Fintech startup BUX is third with €6.1M. Community engagement platform Insided (€6M) and Robot Robotics Company (€5M) complete the top 5.

There isn’t a sector dominating in this quarter’s funding. However, e-commerce and software startups – as always – are well represented.

Here’s the full list of Dutch startup funding in Q1 2016, ranked highest to lowest.

Coolblue

An honorable mention goes out to webshop Coolblue. The scale-up, founded in 1999, allegedly got 140 million euro in a series D round from HAL Investments for 20 percent of the company.

Important notes

As always: a little disclaimer for the creation of this funding report.

The goal of the list is to give an overview of investments into startups. We do not include pre-sales crowdfunding (like on Kickstarter), only convertible note or equity crowdfunding. We typically also don’t count grants and subsidies. We don’t mention funding below 50.000 euro. Majority stakes or takeovers don’t count for our list. When an investment size was undisclosed, our team made an educated guess. A startup should also have a Dutch connection: either the company must be based in The Netherlands or have Dutch founders.

For the definition of a startup: this is always arbitrary. The complete table should be helpful though for anyone who defines the term ‘startup’ differently. In the past we included big fish scale-ups like Adyen and Catawiki because they’re still growing fast (and are max ten years old).

We tried to use all available public data sources. We relied on communication directly to the StartupJuncture team, information from incubators and accelerators, other media, information from crowdfunding platforms (Symbid, Leapfunder and OnePlanetCrowd) and from Index.co, Angellist, Crunchbase and Dealroom.

Of course, we are aware we might have missed something. This funding report however gives you a good impression of the state of startup funding in The Netherlands. If there’s something missing, just give us a heads up in the comments or via team(at)startupjuncture.com.

Lorenz is co-editor-in-chief of StartupJuncture. As a freelance editor and journalist, he writes about startups, innovation and (e)-business. Loves to report from conferences. Really likes cleantech and journalism startups. You can ask him anything about dinosaurs. Twitter: @lorenzroman

The problem with all these lists is the definition of start-ups and the tendency just to look at those companies building software. I think you missed this investment story out of Oss in Brabant. In December 2015 we witnessed one of the largest acquisitions so far in the history of the Dutch biotech sector. The Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical concern AstraZeneca reportedly paid US$3.5 billion for a 55% share in a young Dutch scale-up company Acerta Pharma. It was founded just four years ago on the Pivot Park, they are developing drugs to cure haematological cancers.

Hi Jonathan, yes this is arbitrary, but as we stated in for instance our yearly report, we disclaimed that a little bit more. See https://startupjuncture.com/2015/12/29/dutch-startups-raise-e430-million-in-2015/ Like stated there, we don’t mention majority stakes or takeovers, that’s why Acerta wasn’t included. We obviously should have said that in this piece as well, of course. Also: this list clearly isn’t only about software/tech startups.